Prejudice, discrimination and alienation create a stressful social environment for many minority groups in American society. Such stressful conditions can lead to adverse mental and physical health outcomes. These statements, describing a "minority stress" hypothesis, seem incontrovertible: The hypothesis echoes theoretical writings in the social sciences and reflects lay experiences as portrayed in literary and personal accounts. Some scientific evidence seems to support it, for example, that African American men have higher rates of hypertension than their white counterparts. However, when placed under scientific scrutiny, the minority stress hypothesis is not easily confirmed. Scientific evidence has not clearly supported what seems like a simple idea, that minority group members suffer health consequences of prejudice and discrimination. Scientific research and scholarly work in the area raise significant questions. The answers we give to these questions have serious public policy, public health, and ethical implications for society. These complex issues are the topic of the proposed book. I seek to conduct a comprehensive critical review of research and popular works on the relationship between prejudice and health. In the book I will analyze the minority stress hypothesis and relevant findings using a broad perspective that addresses scientific and medical issues and their social and ethical implications. The book will be significant in two ways: It will provide a needed comprehensive integrated review of theory and research findings; and it will begin a discussion on how American society can address issues of health and quality of life for the diverse groups that compose it. These issues are related to one of the overarching goals of Healthy People 2010, in that they address causes for health disparities in the United States.